A short list of the great athletes connected to NCCU will ultimately leave out many deserving name, but hopefully the following names will remind area college sports fans that NCCU stands proudly as a university in athletics along with academics.

Vincent Martino, better known as Paul to friends and family in Durham, was born in 1922 in Mt. Clare, W. Va. So if you do the math that makes Paul 91 years of age. But just look at his picture, and you will agree the man looks much, much younger. If you walk with Paul or play golf with him, you will swear he must be lying about his age. Around Hillandale Golf Course in Durham, this man of 91 is just “one of the boys.”

No. 2 Duke won all nine of its regular season games in 1941, beating Tennessee in front of 48,000 fans at what was then called Duke Stadium, now Wallace Wade Stadium. In those nine regular-season games, Duke outscored its opponents 311 to 41. As Ted Mann, Duke’s sports publicist at the time, said, “This team simply beat the hell out of everyone.”

In just a few days, Oct. 28 to be exact, Mary “May” Segal of Durham will be 100 years of age. Mrs. Segal has done and seen so much in her long and productive life, and it was my sincere pleasure to spend a few moments with her and daughter Eileen recently.

The bench press is probably the most popular weight training exercise for the upper body. It is such a popular lift that when the question of how much can you lift is asked, most people assume the question is about the bench press.

New research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that obesity is highest in the Southeast and Appalachia regions of America. More than 80 percent of counties in Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia have high rates of obesity. The same problem was found in 75 percent of counties in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina.

Duke will make history Saturday (12:30 p.m., WRAL TV) when it hosts Pittsburgh as a fellow Atlantic Coast Conference member for the first time. It’s not the first time the teams have made history in what is now Wallace Wade Stadium.

I enjoyed speaking to the Roxboro Kiwanis Club recently. My subject was the history of Duke sports, but we mainly talked about Duke football and basketball. I made sure to talk about former Roxboro native Enos Slaughter, who went on to be a Hall of Fame Major League Baseball player and also was the baseball coach at Duke in part of the 1970s. Some of the Duke athletes and coaches we discussed were Wallace Wade, Eddie Cameron, Vic Bubas, Bob Chambers, Jeff Mullins, Ace Parker, Bucky Waters, Dick Groat, and Sonny Jurgensen. Another subject was the 1942 Rose Bowl, which was played in Durham. If this is a topic of interest to you or your organization, let me know.

I got married in 2006, and got diagnosed with lymphoma in 2007. But my good wife evidently took the marriage vows, in sickness and in health, to heart. She went to work each day, then came straight to where I was getting my cancer treatments and sat with me. Beth offered me nothing but total support all the way through, and I’ve been in remission now for more than five years.

I am not a cyclist, but I know it is very good exercise. It was so sad to hear about the death of Durham cyclist Seth Vidal recently on Hillandale Road. We all need to learn how to share the roads with bikers and walkers; give them plenty of space, slow down, and realize they have as much right to the road as anybody.

Like many of you, my wife and I planted flowers this spring. In fact, we pretty much had our backyard deck covered with beautiful, blooming flowers. I spent most of a Saturday planting some begonias, coleus, geraniums, impatiens, and some others. Looked great, and my wife, Beth, was happy. I think I even got an extra tight hug that night.